toe the line

The Japan Times Online ４月２６日の記事を引用します。
China says chatbots must toe the party line
The Communist Party outlined draft rules that would set guardrails on the rapidly growing industry of services like ChatGPT.

"toe the party line" は慣用句のようです。　新聞記事はタイトルの意味が良く分からなくても記事の本文を読むとたいていの場合意味が分かります。　上記の記事タイトルも本文の最初の段ではっきりします。
Five months after ChatGPT set off an investment frenzy over artificial intelligence, Beijing is moving to rein in China’s chatbots, a show of the government’s resolve to keep tight regulatory control over technology that could define an era.

政府や党などが指示する命令に従うことですね。　"toe the line" で辞書の説明を見ます。

・Oxford English Dictionary: to say or do what someone in authority tells you to say or do, even if you do not share the same opinions, etc.: One or two of them refused to toe the line.
・Collins English Dictionary: If you toe the line, you behave in the way that people in authority expect you to.: He's one of the politicians that wouldn't toe the party line.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: to do what you are ordered or expected to do: Ministers who wouldn't toe the party line were swiftly got rid of.

"toe the line" は "B>toe the party line" の形で使われることが多いようですね。

potion

Reader's　Digest 3/4月合併号の記事 "Lawn Gone" 、サブタイトルは Everyone Loves Their Yard...Except Mother Natureとなっていました、からの引用です。

Lawns: burned out, blond and dead, in the air fryer of August. Lawns emerald green--no, alien green--and kept that way by maniacal vigilance and an elaborate system of pipes and potions, organic and otherwise to defiance of ecology.

"potion" は記録には残っていないのでいつだか不明ですが、このブログ（１５年以上前の別のサイト）を始めた頃に取り上げた記憶があります。
大昔に "Love Potion Number 9" と言う曲を良く耳にしましたが、その "Potion" と同じ意味です。

・Oxford English Dictionary: a drink of medicine or poison; a liquid with magic powers: a magic/love potion; (humorous) I've tried all sorts of drugs, creams, pills and potions.
・Collins Dictionary: A potion is a drink that contains medicine, poison, or something that is supposed to have magic powers.: Not all magic is accessed through a wand or potion.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: a liquid or substance that is said to cure an illness or a condition, but is not a medicine: Americans are said to spend more on pills and potions than any other nation.

Xeriscape

Reader's　Digest 3/4月合併号の記事 "LAWN GONE" (サブタイトル Everyone Loves Their Yard...Except Mother Nature) からの引用です。

Try a really alterntive ground cover: rock.
Xeriscaping is a fancy word for a yard that needs little to no water to stay alive. These are popular in desert areas but can be made elsewhere. They often include a mix of drought tolerant plants like cactuses, agave and bright yellow rabbitbush, plus rocks, gravel and mulch.

「隣の芝生は青い」と言うのは米国ならではの表現で、米国では個人の庭でも公共施設の周りでも芝生は綺麗に整備されています。ところが最近、この芝生が水やガソリン（米国では個人の庭も機械の芝刈りを使う）等の資源の無駄、又自然な植物を疎外しているなどとして、芝生を止めようと主張している記事でした。昔米国に駐在していた時に、羨ましい（庭の芝と言うよりグラウンドなどの芝生）気がしていたので、大変意外な運動です。　しかし記事を読むと、最もな考えだとも思いました。
"xeriscaping" の説明（原形の "xeriscape"）を辞書で調べます。

・Collins Dictionary: a landscaping method designed to conserve water in arid regions by using plants that require little water and by employing efficient irrigation techniques: xeriscape means to place all plants with the same water needs together, emphasizing drought-tolerant plants.
・Wikionary: A kind of landscape design for arid regions, minimising the need for irrigation.: The blade-like leaves add variety to a cactus or xeriscape garden.
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: a landscaping method developed especially for arid and semiarid climates that utilizes water-conserving techniques (such as the use of drought-tolerant plants, mulch, and efficient irrigation)
Xēros is the Greek word for "dry" that is the base for a handful of English words related to mainly dry printing (xerography) and dry, or xerophilous, habitats and their plants. In the early 1980s, the Greek adjective was used to name a type of landscaping practiced primarily in the arid western regions of the United States.

乾式複写機で有名なゼロックスと共通な語源だと知ると覚えやすいですね。

fat fee

Yuval Noah Harariの "Sapiens" を読んでいます。 'A Permanent Revolution' の章から引用します。

The modern family is still supposed to provide for intimate needs, which state and market are (so far) incapable of providing. Yet even here the family is subject to increasing interventions. The market shapes to an ever-greater dgree the way people conduct their romantic and sexual lives. Whereas traditionally the family was the main match maker, today it's the market that tailors our romantic and sexual preferences, and then lends a hand in providing for them - for a fat fee.

"fat fee" は高額な料金のようですが、辞書で確認します。

・Oxford English Dictionary: large in quantity; worth a lot of money: a fat sum/profit; He gave me a nice fat cheque.
・Collins Dictionary: A fat profit or fee is a large one.: They are set to make a big fat profit.

fly in the ointment

Yuval Noah Harariの "Sapiens" を読んでいます。 'The Capitalist Greed' の章から引用します。

Private slave-trading companies sold shares on the Amsterdam, London and Paris stock exchanges. Middle-class Europeans looking for a good investment bought these shares. Relying on this money, the companies bought ships, hired sailors and soldiers, purchased slaves in Africa, and transported them to America. There they sold the slaves to the plantation owners, using the proceeds to purchase plantation products such as sugar, cocoa, coffee, tobacco, cotton and rum. They returned to Europe, sold the sugar and cotton for a good price, and then sailed to Africa to begin another round. The shareholders were very pleased with this arrangement. Throughout the eighteenth century the yield on slave-trade investments was about 6 per cent a year -- they were extremely profitable, as any modern consultant would be quick to admit.
This is the fly in the ointment of free-market capitalism. It cannot ensure that profits are gained in a fair way, or distributed in a fair manner.

・Collins Dictionary: a slight flaw that detracts from value, completeness, or enjoyment:
・Cambridge English Dictionary: a single thing or person that is spoiling a situation that could have been very positive or enjoyable: I'm looking forward to Sunday, the only fly in the ointment being the fact that I'll have to sit next to my mother-in-law.

日本語で言う「玉にきず」ですね。

ideology

Yuval Noah Harariの "Sapiens" を読んでいます。 'The Law of Religion' の章から引用します。

The modern age has witnessed the rise of a number of new natural-law religions, such as liberalism, Communism, capitalism, nationalism and Nazism. These creeds do not like to be called religions, and refer to themselves as ideologies. But this is just a semantic exercise. If a religion is a system of human norms and values that is founded on belief in a superhuman order, then Soviet Communism was no less a religion than Islam.

Harariはいわゆる様々なイデオロジーも宗教の範疇に入れているのが斬新に思えます。　辞書で "ideology" の説明を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: a set of ideas that an economic or political system is based on: Marxist/capitalist ideology
・Collins Dictionary: An ideology is a set of beliefs, especially the political beliefs on which people, parties, or countries base their actions.: More importantly, economic theory has become a branch of political ideology.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: a set of beliefs or principles, especially one on which a political system, party, or organization is based: The people are caught between two opposing ideologies.

nirvana

Yuval Noah Harariの "Sapiens" を読んでいます。 'The Law of Religion' の章から仏教に関する記述を抜粋します。

That 'suffering arises from craving' is always and everywhere true, just as in modern physics E always equals mc2.
...
Buddhism does not deny the existence of gods -- they are described as powerful beings who can bring rains and victories -- but they have no influence on the law that suffering arises from craving.
...
If the mind of a person is free of all craving, no god can make him miserable. Conversely, once craving arises in a person's mind, all the gods in the universe cannot save him from suffering.
...
However, 99 per cent of Buddhists did not attain nirvana, and even if they hoped to do so in some future lifetime, they devoted most of their present lives to the pursuit of mundane achievements.

宗教は人間が作ったもので、仏教、神道、キリスト教等々、何れも私は興味ありませんが、Harari氏の説明は分かり易いので納得できます。
"nirvana"　はいわゆる涅槃を指していて、一切の煩悩を断ち切り、悟りの境地に至ったことだと理解しています。 引用文の "If the mind of a person is free of all craving" の個所がそれに相当しています。 "nirvana" の英英辞書での説明を見ます。

・Collins Dictionary: final release from the cycle of reincarnation attained by extinction of all desires and individual existence, culminating (in Buddhism) in absolute blessedness, or (in Hinduism) in absorption into Brahman
・Cambridge English Dictionary: a state of freedom from all suffering that Buddhists believe can be achieved by removing all personal wishes: The high streets are no nirvana for shoppers.

・Vocabulary.com: Nirvana is a place of perfect peace and happiness, like heaven. In Buddhism, nirvana is the highest state that someone can attain, a state of enlightenment, meaning a person's individual desires and suffering go away.
The origin of the word nirvana relates to religious enlightenment; it comes from the Sanskrit meaning "extinction, disappearance" of the individual to the universal. Achieving nirvana is to make earthly feelings like suffering and desire disappear. It's often used casually to mean any place of happiness, like if you love chocolate, going to Hershey's Park would be nirvana. On the other hand, if you're a Buddhist monk, it may take you years of meditating to reach nirvana.

idolatry

Yuval Noah Harariの "Sapiens" を読んでいます。 'The Benefits of Idolatry' の章から引用します。

Two thousand years of monotheistic brainwashing have caused most Westerners to see polytheism as ignorant and childish idolatry. This is an unjust stereotype. In order to understand the inner logic of polytheism, it is necessary to grasp the central idea buttressing the belief in many gods.

章のタイトルにも使われている "idolatry" の説明を辞書で見ます。

・Collins Dictionary: Someone who practises idolatry worships idols.: Their affection for her soon increased almost to idolatry.
・Catholic Encyclopedia: Etymologically denotes divine worship given to an image, but its signification has been extended to all divine worship given to anyone or anything but the true God
・Vocabulary.com: Idolatry means the worship of images as if they were gods. Many religions prohibit idolatry, some even to the extent of forbidding any representational objects in houses of worship.
Idol sits at the head of the word idolatry. If you worship — or even just look up to — a person or a thing, you are said to idolize them. For some modern idolaters, money is their idol, while for others it is celebrities, and for still others their jobs.

this is a library!

Reader's　Digest 3/4月合併号の記事 "LAUGHTER the Best Medicine" からの引用です。
This National Library Workers Day (April 25), make sure to take out a book and leave a gag:
A drunk goes up to the desk and shouts, "I'll have a burger, fries and a milkshake."
The librarian says, "Sir, this is a library!"
"Sorry," he wispers.
"I'll have a burger, fries and a milkshake."